1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to take-up devices for electrical cords, and more particularly to those take-up devices for flat wire cables used in telephone communication and data transmissions.
2. Background
U.S. Pat. No. 5,230,481 (Wheeler et al.) discloses a dual reel cord take-up device for connecting a telephone and a cooperating handset. This device serves to connect the handset of a telephone to the body of the telephone with a device wherein the connecting cord is wound on a spool. This allows the user of the telephone to pick up the handset, move many feet away from the telephone, and still be connected by cable to the telephone body. When the user returns the handset to the telephone, there is no pile of twisted and coiled extension cord. Instead, all of the phone cable is neatly wound back onto the shaft of the take-up device.
The feature of this system is that when the user of the handset returns the handset to its cradle, the shaft winds up the available cord and just before the handset is placed on the cradle, the take-up reel, with its now much shortened external cable link, can contact the desk or table on which the telephone is situated. This contact can produce an audible clicking sound which the person on the other end of the telephone can hear.
There is a need to invent a device for feeding out electrical cable between a telephone set and its handset, and taking that cable up into a neat package, without having the device be free floating, and creating noise as it contacts objects during retraction and use.